The government is admitting that radiation monitors placed around Japan and the evacuation zone areas were reading artificially low. Citizen activists previously pointed out that many radiation monitors had the land under them decontaminated. Some had steel plates put underneath that shield the actual dose from the meter. Many meters have been placed on top of buildings and the adjusted to 1 meter high reading is only displayed in tiny print giving people a distorted understanding of the levels in an area. We documented these problems here.

Now the government is admitting a new problem. The battery boxes that are part of the meter station have been influencing the readings. The readings were about 10% less than they should have read according to official. 675 of these new stations have been installed around Japan with 545 of them in Fukushima prefecture. The ministry says it will cost them 1.8 million USD to repair the monitors.

Add this new problem to the other issues causing lower than actual readings with the stations. Pressure from citizen activists armed with radiation meters caused the government to be forced to look into the problems with the network of monitoring stations.

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